Date of Award

Summer 7-22-2021

Document Type

Scholarly Project

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

First Advisor

Camille Payne, PhD, RN

Second Advisor

Beverly McInnis, DNP, CNS, RNC

Abstract

Practice Problem: Compassion fatigue is a growing problem that can affect 21% to 39% of nurses who work in hospital settings (Berger et al., 2015). Compassion fatigue has been further exacerbated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Compassion fatigue negatively impacts the nurses in profound physical and emotional ways.

PICOT: The PICOT question that guided this project was: For obstetrical nurses working in a nonprofit organization, what is the effect of a compassion fatigue program, compared with no program, on nurses in reducing compassion fatigue after two months?

Evidence: Current evidence shows that mindfulness decreases compassion fatigue and increases compassion satisfaction.

Intervention: This paper describes how a mindfulness program was implemented in obstetrical unit in a nonprofit hospital in central Virginia.

Outcome: The implementation of this mindfulness program has resulted in a 15.6% increase in compassion satisfaction, a 35.1% decrease in burnout, and a 39.5% decrease in secondary traumatic stress.

Conclusion: This EBP project demonstrated that the mindfulness program successfully decreased the incidence of compassion fatigue in obstetrical nurses at a statistically significant level.

Comments

Scholarly project submitted to the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Nursing Practice.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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